Tuesday, December 30, 2014

The Time is Now

In the days of my youth social struggle was our
calling. There were many movements working
for change, and some people within those groups called for violence. It was hardly surprising since the cruelty
and viciousness directed toward the vulnerable, the disenfranchised and the
socially unacceptable were pronounced, institutionalized and even codified by
organized religion. People of color,
women, children, the disadvantaged and disaffected were in point of fact the
property of – Emancipation Proclamation notwithstanding – the white-male
establishment. That stratum of society
itself was ranked by hierarchical privilege into the moneyed and powerful at
the top and those who, along with the marginalized just mentioned, earned that money
and surrendered that power falling far to the bottom.

Into the maelstrom came a visionary capable of seeing
clearly past the here and now into the possible. Dr. Martin Luther King believed that only
nonviolence can achieve honorable, real and permanent change, as did his mentor
Gandhi. I suppose to some it felt and
even now can feel absurd to suggest peace when children are being shot down by
militarized cops and idiots like Rudy Giuliani, still clinging to the forlorn
hope of living in the White House, persist in playing race against race, cop
against civilian, Obama against everybody.

Nonetheless, Dr. King and Gandhi were unequivocally right. I say this even now as we watch the dream of
the former rolled backward by a politicized Supreme Court and rabid, racist
statehouses all over the country. By way
of demonstration I suggest reflection upon the fact that had anyone told the
greatest colonial power in history in the middle of the 19th
Century that her Empire in India would be brought to its knees by a robe-draped,
Hindu scholar with poor eyesight, mighty England would have laughed in their
face. Still in all, that is exactly what
happened.

On the other hand, even in the warm light of love the cold shadow
of violence lingers; and the oppressed have risen up with rocks, spears,
arrows, knives and guns throughout history when they have had enough. From the sacking of the Roman Empire by the
Visigoths to the American, French and Russian Revolutions rage has driven the
victims of tyranny to war.

Today we see the modernization of Roman brutality; of the divine
right and entitlement to exploit held sacred by the many British monarchs; of the
opulent decadence enjoyed at the expense of the people by the French Kings, and
of the profound indifference to the suffering of generations under the Czars of
Russia. One can’t help but see the
buffoon Nero, who preferred performing in the theater to the business of state,
in Rudy Giuliani posturing in the press; King George III in Jami Dimon’s
insistence that the United States Congress be at his beck and call; Louie XVI’s
self-indulgence in Wall Street and Czar Nichols’ dearth of care and compassion
in Congress.

To me it seems obvious that on the other side of the intense
apathy seen in the electorate this past November a mounting fury – growing in
the streets as of this writing – will inevitably explode when the American
people who failed to participate in the last election realize just what they
have let themselves and the rest of us in for with a Republican House and
Senate elected by default. The
thoughtless unresponsiveness of many to the requirements of citizenship in a
free country is, to my way of thinking, as responsible for the rise of
government by the minority and by money as are Citizens United, Scalia and the conceited
harlots in Congress. A recent study at Princeton and Northeastern Universities
would seem to confirm what many of us has long feared. This great democratic
republic has deteriorated into a fulminating oligarchy, and we have no one but
ourselves to blame in many ways. Accordingly, oligarchies lead to tyranny which
is followed by revolution as surely as night follows day.

As Lord Byron said, "History, with all her volumes vast, hath but one page." That page is often written in blood. The only safeguard against revolutionary bloodshed in this country is the franchise. It must be protected, secured and defended on behalf of all the American people. Anyone who isn't prepared to do that is not fit to serve in any area of government - on the bench, in the executive or legislative field. Anyone who is to indolent to vote, even when their very freedom is threatened, deserves neither the safeguard of the franchise nor the dignity of freedom.

It is no longer possible to ignore the monster under the bed or the perpetual children who prefer to sleep therein. Greed and apathy do not a civil society make. Complacency is a velvet cage - softly enfolding those it imprisons as surely as steel bars. We can't all be activists, but we must all participate. We can't all be firebrands, but we must all be alert. It is time to stand up, speak out, hold ourselves upright and defiant before words and peaceful action are no longer enough and out of desperation and wrath we shred our humanity and rip ourselves apart.